1
00:00:00,090 --> 00:00:00,640
Um.
2
00:00:04,050 --> 00:00:07,806
This is Wikipedia Weekly, the podcast for anyone who's ever said.
3
00:00:07,908 --> 00:00:11,294
Well, actually, Wikipedia has a really good article on that.
4
00:00:11,492 --> 00:00:15,034
Today we talk to user awadowitz, the Wiki authority
5
00:00:15,082 --> 00:00:18,746
on 18th century english literature. Barn nun. She's got bronze.
6
00:00:18,778 --> 00:00:22,474
Good article review. Barn stars four. Good article. Barn stars
7
00:00:22,522 --> 00:00:25,906
four. Barn stars of diligence, literary stars, working women's
8
00:00:25,938 --> 00:00:28,630
stars, and my favorite, the fist of respect.
9
00:00:35,610 --> 00:00:38,374
Hello and welcome to the show. How are you going today?
10
00:00:38,492 --> 00:00:41,846
I'm doing well, thank you. Is that your name? That your
11
00:00:41,868 --> 00:00:44,714
username? Awadowit. It's a very interesting.
12
00:00:44,752 --> 00:00:48,282
Yeah, you can make up any sort of pronunciation you want,
13
00:00:48,336 --> 00:00:51,966
I think. Okay, so what
14
00:00:51,988 --> 00:00:55,690
is your most recently featured article? Because I think you have about 13.
15
00:00:55,770 --> 00:00:58,778
Is that correct? Yeah, you know, I don't
16
00:00:58,794 --> 00:01:01,040
even know the number.
17
00:01:02,210 --> 00:01:04,900
The most recently featured one.
18
00:01:05,990 --> 00:01:09,140
I don't know, actually, might be.
19
00:01:09,590 --> 00:01:13,326
It's certainly one of the ones on Mary Wilsoncraft. I think it's the vindication
20
00:01:13,358 --> 00:01:16,498
of the rights of men. The vindication might be the ones of men. A lot
21
00:01:16,504 --> 00:01:19,846
of people, I imagine we've heard of the vindication of the rights of women.
22
00:01:19,948 --> 00:01:23,586
Mary Wilson cast being one of the most famous first wave
23
00:01:23,618 --> 00:01:26,600
feminists. Well, she's not a first wave feminist. No,
24
00:01:27,950 --> 00:01:31,466
because there is no feminist movement until the end of the
25
00:01:31,488 --> 00:01:34,966
19th century and the beginning of the 20th
26
00:01:34,998 --> 00:01:39,178
century. Actually, if you read the feminism page,
27
00:01:39,264 --> 00:01:42,686
which is fairly good on Wikipedia, you can read the history of
28
00:01:42,708 --> 00:01:46,000
first wave feminism. I'm showing my. Oh,
29
00:01:46,850 --> 00:01:50,378
you can probably call Mary
30
00:01:50,394 --> 00:01:53,710
Wilsoncraft, in my opinion, a proto feminist.
31
00:01:53,870 --> 00:01:57,218
And actually, on the vindication of the
32
00:01:57,224 --> 00:02:01,038
rights of woman page, one of the foremost Wilson
33
00:02:01,054 --> 00:02:04,386
Kraft scholars, Barbara Taylor, talks about why or why
34
00:02:04,408 --> 00:02:08,214
not. You can call her an actual feminist, but she
35
00:02:08,252 --> 00:02:11,730
certainly wasn't part of the historical first wave
36
00:02:11,810 --> 00:02:15,126
movement, since there was no feminist movement at the
37
00:02:15,148 --> 00:02:17,830
time, and she would never have used that word herself.
38
00:02:18,190 --> 00:02:21,062
For 100 years after her death,
39
00:02:21,206 --> 00:02:24,534
she was reviled as a prostitute and a whore.
40
00:02:24,662 --> 00:02:27,740
Gee, it's really a fascinating story.
41
00:02:29,150 --> 00:02:32,350
One of the reasons I sort of got interested in her writings.
42
00:02:33,090 --> 00:02:36,426
After her death, her husband, William Godwin,
43
00:02:36,458 --> 00:02:40,394
the philosopher, was brokenhearted and decided
44
00:02:40,442 --> 00:02:44,814
to write a biography of her. And he was inspired by Rousseau's
45
00:02:44,862 --> 00:02:48,146
new ideas about how biographies and autobiographies should
46
00:02:48,168 --> 00:02:51,714
look. Rousseau had written a very influential autobiography called
47
00:02:51,752 --> 00:02:55,154
the Confessions, and if somebody could expand that
48
00:02:55,192 --> 00:02:58,434
page on Wikipedia, that would be wonderful. Sort of a stub
49
00:02:58,482 --> 00:03:01,862
right now. But it was incredibly influential. It was
50
00:03:01,916 --> 00:03:05,718
a bestseller, and he sort of wrote this 400 page
51
00:03:05,884 --> 00:03:09,142
sort of outpouring of his soul that he was going to write
52
00:03:09,196 --> 00:03:12,666
exactly what he thought. And so Godwin took this to heart,
53
00:03:12,768 --> 00:03:16,166
and he said, well, I'm going to write exactly what Mary Wilsoncraft's
54
00:03:16,198 --> 00:03:19,722
life was like. And he said everything about her that he knew
55
00:03:19,776 --> 00:03:22,426
that she had had an affair.
56
00:03:22,618 --> 00:03:26,282
She had tried to have a threesome with Henry Fusili
57
00:03:26,346 --> 00:03:29,920
and his wife. She had had an illegitimate child.
58
00:03:31,170 --> 00:03:34,830
When are we talking here? Yes, at the end of the 18th century,
59
00:03:35,250 --> 00:03:39,230
in the 1780s and 1790s. This is completely unacceptable.
60
00:03:39,390 --> 00:03:42,574
Obviously, in many places now, it still is unacceptable.
61
00:03:42,702 --> 00:03:46,262
Then it was even more unacceptable. And when
62
00:03:46,316 --> 00:03:49,682
this was published, people were outraged.
63
00:03:49,746 --> 00:03:52,118
They were shocked. They were bald. Right.
64
00:03:52,284 --> 00:03:55,794
And whatever respect
65
00:03:55,842 --> 00:03:59,226
she might have gained as a writer was totally lost, because. She did
66
00:03:59,248 --> 00:04:02,762
have incredible respect in her day. She was the editor of
67
00:04:02,816 --> 00:04:05,610
really important magazine and literary journal,
68
00:04:06,270 --> 00:04:10,406
the Analytical Review. Until this biography
69
00:04:10,438 --> 00:04:14,318
was published. And once it was published, that really was completely
70
00:04:14,404 --> 00:04:17,706
lost for about a century. So she was only revived
71
00:04:17,738 --> 00:04:21,418
as an important and respected character in the late 19th
72
00:04:21,434 --> 00:04:28,338
century. Yeah, so once what
73
00:04:28,344 --> 00:04:31,220
you were talking about is the first away feminist movement comes along.
74
00:04:32,150 --> 00:04:35,626
People like Emma Goldman, Lucretia Mott,
75
00:04:35,678 --> 00:04:39,046
some of these figures, they try to resurrect Wilson Kraft, but it's very
76
00:04:39,068 --> 00:04:42,454
difficult because there's such this
77
00:04:42,492 --> 00:04:46,278
association with her of these terrible sort
78
00:04:46,284 --> 00:04:50,326
of immoral acts and values that it's
79
00:04:50,358 --> 00:04:53,994
difficult for them to even use her writings. They talk about being
80
00:04:54,032 --> 00:04:57,238
inspired by her life. Virginia Wolf referred
81
00:04:57,254 --> 00:05:01,198
to her experiments in living as something to be inspired by.
82
00:05:01,284 --> 00:05:05,390
But it really was difficult
83
00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:08,958
for these women to use her writings or even refer to her.
84
00:05:09,044 --> 00:05:12,654
And that's why it's even sketchy to
85
00:05:12,692 --> 00:05:15,986
say that Wilson Kraft is like an inspiration for
86
00:05:16,008 --> 00:05:19,950
the feminist movement, because it's so oblique. Any references
87
00:05:20,030 --> 00:05:23,826
to her to prove that is very difficult.
88
00:05:24,008 --> 00:05:27,554
Very difficult. Okay, well, what is your interest in Wilsoncraft
89
00:05:27,602 --> 00:05:30,854
and in 18th century literature, children's literature? Well,
90
00:05:30,892 --> 00:05:34,870
originally, I became interested in Wilson Craft's
91
00:05:35,210 --> 00:05:39,094
story called original Stories from real life, which is
92
00:05:39,132 --> 00:05:42,778
a book that she wrote for children. Not many people know
93
00:05:42,784 --> 00:05:46,714
that Wilsoncraft wrote children's books, but indeed she did. She also
94
00:05:46,752 --> 00:05:49,590
wrote a book called thoughts on the education of daughters,
95
00:05:49,670 --> 00:05:53,166
about how to raise a daughter all the way from
96
00:05:53,268 --> 00:05:56,846
infancy to marriage. And I became fascinated by
97
00:05:56,868 --> 00:06:00,346
the fact that Wilsoncraft was interested in education throughout
98
00:06:00,378 --> 00:06:03,614
her entire life. Almost all her books have something to do with education.
99
00:06:03,812 --> 00:06:08,178
So I started reading not only Wilsoncraft's book,
100
00:06:08,264 --> 00:06:11,614
but also women such as Anna Letitia Barbeau,
101
00:06:11,662 --> 00:06:14,526
Sarah Trimmer, Mary Martha Sherwood.
102
00:06:14,638 --> 00:06:18,418
And I really wanted to understand the answers
103
00:06:18,434 --> 00:06:21,778
to the question, which I haven't been able to find yet. But I'm
104
00:06:21,794 --> 00:06:25,622
still searching for of how it was that women who did not
105
00:06:25,676 --> 00:06:29,750
share any political similarity, because women
106
00:06:29,820 --> 00:06:33,414
such as Sarah Trimmer or Hannah Moore are generally
107
00:06:33,462 --> 00:06:37,194
viewed as extremely conservative, what might be called
108
00:06:37,312 --> 00:06:41,238
anti jacobin at the time, they were against the ideals
109
00:06:41,254 --> 00:06:45,938
of the French Revolution, whereas women such as Barbeau orcraft
110
00:06:45,974 --> 00:06:49,194
were very much in support of the French Revolution. Wilson Kraft even went to France
111
00:06:49,242 --> 00:06:53,026
in support of the French Revolution. But they all just writing children's books. She's getting
112
00:06:53,048 --> 00:06:55,940
involved in the politics of the day. That's right. Yeah, exactly.
113
00:06:56,710 --> 00:07:00,260
But they all supported education for women.
114
00:07:00,870 --> 00:07:04,114
And oftentimes writing for children was a way
115
00:07:04,152 --> 00:07:07,170
that they could get involved in the public sphere.
116
00:07:07,990 --> 00:07:11,750
They could format that. You could talk to women
117
00:07:11,820 --> 00:07:15,590
via children's books. Well, actually you could talk to the nation,
118
00:07:16,810 --> 00:07:19,962
because most of these women would write
119
00:07:20,016 --> 00:07:23,974
and say, well, I am going to describe the ideal citizen.
120
00:07:24,102 --> 00:07:27,834
And the way to educate the ideal citizen is this.
121
00:07:27,952 --> 00:07:31,834
And then it's described in their children's literature. The ideal
122
00:07:31,882 --> 00:07:34,350
citizen is the future for the nation.
123
00:07:35,090 --> 00:07:38,894
And that's really fascinating that
124
00:07:38,932 --> 00:07:42,382
they are stepping forth and saying, I feel
125
00:07:42,436 --> 00:07:45,710
that I have the right to participate in this discussion
126
00:07:45,790 --> 00:07:49,220
about what the future of our country is going to look like.
127
00:07:49,590 --> 00:07:53,266
And what's even more fascinating is that all of these
128
00:07:53,288 --> 00:07:56,926
women across this entire political spectrum have very much the same
129
00:07:56,968 --> 00:08:00,486
idea of what that future citizen should look like. I really want to talk about
130
00:08:00,508 --> 00:08:03,986
the fairy tale thing, actually, because it's quite fascinating. They're anti fairy
131
00:08:04,018 --> 00:08:08,730
tale. They believed in a rational worldview
132
00:08:09,710 --> 00:08:12,902
and were determined to oust
133
00:08:12,966 --> 00:08:16,950
fairy tales because they perpetuated superstition
134
00:08:17,030 --> 00:08:18,650
and irrationality.
135
00:08:20,270 --> 00:08:23,486
Obviously, that didn't work out. I mean, we live in
136
00:08:23,508 --> 00:08:27,262
a fairy tale ridden world for children. But it's fascinating to read their
137
00:08:27,316 --> 00:08:30,990
views on fairy tales because they really
138
00:08:31,060 --> 00:08:34,734
were concerned that children were going to believe in stories
139
00:08:34,862 --> 00:08:37,730
that were totally untrue, such as ghost stories.
140
00:08:38,790 --> 00:08:42,098
Why don't we go back to the beginning? Where are
141
00:08:42,104 --> 00:08:45,670
you speaking to us from today? The United States
142
00:08:45,820 --> 00:08:50,226
in the midwest. Okay. And you're a university
143
00:08:50,338 --> 00:08:54,306
academic, but you prefer to remain
144
00:08:54,418 --> 00:08:57,560
quite anonymous. Can you elaborate on that?
145
00:08:58,670 --> 00:09:02,250
Yes, I'm a graduate student, which means
146
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:06,118
that my employment is in the humanities,
147
00:09:06,214 --> 00:09:08,650
which means that my employment is rather precarious.
148
00:09:09,710 --> 00:09:13,194
I don't have a job yet. And in the humanities,
149
00:09:13,322 --> 00:09:17,114
Wikipedia does not have quite the same acceptance.
150
00:09:17,242 --> 00:09:20,480
I don't think that it does in the sciences. Don't I know it.
151
00:09:21,250 --> 00:09:25,326
Tell me about it. Well, I'm currently an
152
00:09:25,348 --> 00:09:29,186
undergraduate. Yes, I'm taking my honors thesis in the school of
153
00:09:29,208 --> 00:09:33,166
history, on the academic lineage of Wikipedia, and how Wikipedia
154
00:09:33,198 --> 00:09:36,462
relates to historiographical arguments on authorship
155
00:09:36,526 --> 00:09:40,246
or the authority of knowledge, on censorship and things like
156
00:09:40,268 --> 00:09:44,338
that. And it's not only difficult to get them to accept
157
00:09:44,354 --> 00:09:47,254
that it might be an interesting topic to start with,
158
00:09:47,372 --> 00:09:51,094
but accept that you could even deal with Wikipedia
159
00:09:51,142 --> 00:09:54,998
in the context of academic debates in historiography.
160
00:09:55,174 --> 00:09:58,726
So before I even can write thesis properly,
161
00:09:58,758 --> 00:10:02,426
I have to convince the people in the faculty that it is a legitimate
162
00:10:02,458 --> 00:10:05,726
topic of concern that they should be aware of. You have
163
00:10:05,748 --> 00:10:07,760
to find the right person. Yes,
164
00:10:08,770 --> 00:10:12,320
that's what it's all about, finding the right person who's interested.
165
00:10:13,570 --> 00:10:17,906
So you're worried that if you publicize publicly your interest and
166
00:10:18,008 --> 00:10:21,298
experience on Wikipedia, that you won't get a job because you'd be laughed out of
167
00:10:21,304 --> 00:10:25,154
town. I'm very concerned, actually, I'm very
168
00:10:25,192 --> 00:10:29,014
concerned about that. I'm concerned that people will think that
169
00:10:29,052 --> 00:10:32,514
perhaps I've wasted time that I could have spent
170
00:10:32,642 --> 00:10:36,898
on my dissertation, time I could have spent publishing articles.
171
00:10:36,994 --> 00:10:40,694
That's really sad. Yeah. And it is because I
172
00:10:40,732 --> 00:10:44,602
really view the time that I have spent working
173
00:10:44,656 --> 00:10:48,810
on things for Wikipedia, which is related to what I'm studying
174
00:10:49,150 --> 00:10:52,240
as sort of public service,
175
00:10:53,730 --> 00:10:57,102
as part of being a public intellectual, because I'm often
176
00:10:57,156 --> 00:11:01,022
engaged in conversations with people on Wikipedia where I feel like
177
00:11:01,156 --> 00:11:05,406
I'm explaining what it means to be a scholar and
178
00:11:05,588 --> 00:11:09,154
I'm explaining even down to the level of,
179
00:11:09,192 --> 00:11:11,902
well, here's how you write a paragraph, or here's where you write a sentence.
180
00:11:11,966 --> 00:11:15,334
Right? Is that a wasted time? No, I don't think so,
181
00:11:15,372 --> 00:11:19,526
because that's what I do all the time. Yeah, that's what I do as
182
00:11:19,708 --> 00:11:23,126
that's my field, rhetoric and
183
00:11:23,148 --> 00:11:26,646
language. And I also feel that when,
184
00:11:26,748 --> 00:11:30,018
for example, you type into Google any of the things that I
185
00:11:30,044 --> 00:11:33,846
study in the 18th century, and they come up and they're empty in Wikipedia.
186
00:11:33,958 --> 00:11:37,610
I mean, the 18th century is just really sad on Wikipedia.
187
00:11:38,030 --> 00:11:40,800
Well, not needful, thanks to you. Well,
188
00:11:41,330 --> 00:11:43,440
13 articles or whatever, please.
189
00:11:45,410 --> 00:11:48,974
Since so many people in the world are looking at
190
00:11:49,012 --> 00:11:52,362
us first, why don't the people who have the knowledge,
191
00:11:52,506 --> 00:11:55,682
who already have taken the years to study, yeah,
192
00:11:55,736 --> 00:11:58,754
why don't they just donate it?
193
00:11:58,792 --> 00:12:02,686
I mean, I belong to a listserve of 18th century
194
00:12:02,798 --> 00:12:06,406
academics, and I was so distressed to see that one person said they
195
00:12:06,428 --> 00:12:09,734
had checked the Samuel Johnson article and that it was
196
00:12:09,852 --> 00:12:13,638
filled with errors. And I thought to myself,
197
00:12:13,804 --> 00:12:17,590
why didn't you fix them? It would have been
198
00:12:17,660 --> 00:12:21,322
easy for you who had studied for 20 years.
199
00:12:21,456 --> 00:12:24,938
But no, I bet the people that you work with on
200
00:12:24,944 --> 00:12:28,714
a day to day basis have no idea that you are most
201
00:12:28,752 --> 00:12:32,934
probably the world's most foremost resource
202
00:12:33,062 --> 00:12:36,682
for information about that period or about english literature
203
00:12:36,746 --> 00:12:40,906
of that period. That more people read your work about Mary Wilson
204
00:12:40,938 --> 00:12:44,842
Craft than the officially recognized expert on Mary Wilson Craft.
205
00:12:44,986 --> 00:12:48,162
It's kind of scary. Sometimes I think about this,
206
00:12:48,216 --> 00:12:52,254
that what I have written about Mary Wilson Craft is now populated
207
00:12:52,302 --> 00:12:55,862
all over the web. I see it sometimes on other websites because
208
00:12:55,916 --> 00:12:59,270
they copy off of Wikipedia and it sometimes
209
00:12:59,340 --> 00:13:03,346
frightens me. It's kind of disturbing.
210
00:13:03,458 --> 00:13:06,038
You're secretly famous. Yeah,
211
00:13:06,124 --> 00:13:09,794
exactly. But it is a sort of fascinating
212
00:13:09,842 --> 00:13:13,946
thing. And every once in a while when I meet somebody who is a
213
00:13:13,968 --> 00:13:17,786
professor or another graduate student who I think might be receptive to the idea,
214
00:13:17,968 --> 00:13:20,762
I mentioned it and I say, you know, it would be a really good idea
215
00:13:20,816 --> 00:13:23,520
if you wrote an article because.
216
00:13:24,210 --> 00:13:27,966
But it's very hard to convince people that they should
217
00:13:28,148 --> 00:13:31,278
spend their time doing something that they're not going to get any credit for
218
00:13:31,364 --> 00:13:35,170
on their cv or when they're applying for tenure.
219
00:13:35,510 --> 00:13:39,058
But getting a job in the
220
00:13:39,064 --> 00:13:43,086
humanities is a very difficult proposition.
221
00:13:43,198 --> 00:13:46,840
About 200 to 400 people apply for every job,
222
00:13:47,290 --> 00:13:51,398
and they are just always looking for a reason to throw somebody
223
00:13:51,484 --> 00:13:54,742
out of that pool. It's truly sad that
224
00:13:54,796 --> 00:13:59,750
that should come to arbitrary
225
00:14:00,090 --> 00:14:03,546
draws a parallel in my mind between what you were saying about Mary Wilsoncraft and
226
00:14:03,568 --> 00:14:07,238
how her and her contemporaries were not allowed to participate
227
00:14:07,254 --> 00:14:10,474
in the public debate on citizenship because they
228
00:14:10,512 --> 00:14:14,078
were women, and so they came around it in a sort
229
00:14:14,084 --> 00:14:17,326
of a secret way by writing children's books. You seem to be having a
230
00:14:17,348 --> 00:14:20,682
similar approach, that you're not allowed to broach
231
00:14:20,746 --> 00:14:25,118
the topic of freeing out knowledge because you're
232
00:14:25,124 --> 00:14:28,638
not allowed to broach the topic of being an academic because you're a Wikipedia
233
00:14:28,654 --> 00:14:32,366
writer and those two things are mutually exclusive. So you come about it a secret
234
00:14:32,398 --> 00:14:35,578
way and produce your secretly famous,
235
00:14:35,614 --> 00:14:39,286
produce your work and then hide the fact. It's sort
236
00:14:39,308 --> 00:14:42,360
of bit of a parallel, wouldn't you say?
237
00:14:44,810 --> 00:14:48,806
I think I'm a little bit more open about being an academic than poor Mary
238
00:14:48,838 --> 00:14:52,346
Wilson Craft, whose life I feel was a great
239
00:14:52,368 --> 00:14:57,514
deal more tragic than my own. But I
240
00:14:57,552 --> 00:15:01,726
guess I feel that perhaps someday I will be able to
241
00:15:01,828 --> 00:15:05,342
post on my user page if I'm lucky enough
242
00:15:05,396 --> 00:15:06,960
to get an academic job.
243
00:15:09,410 --> 00:15:12,898
On masks. Right, exactly. I want to be
244
00:15:12,904 --> 00:15:16,340
able to do that. I want to be able to be transparent. I do.
245
00:15:17,350 --> 00:15:20,594
But the danger, I feel
246
00:15:20,632 --> 00:15:24,094
it because I've been on job search committees
247
00:15:24,222 --> 00:15:31,270
and I've seen what they say about candidates and
248
00:15:31,340 --> 00:15:35,990
I've read the Chronicle of Higher education's columns about job
249
00:15:36,060 --> 00:15:39,530
search committees, and it makes me wary.
250
00:15:48,430 --> 00:15:52,174
You were saying before we started this interview about
251
00:15:52,372 --> 00:15:56,350
in the aftermath of the SJ controversy, where a person
252
00:15:56,420 --> 00:16:00,014
was very publicly kicked out of Wikipedia because he had been
253
00:16:00,052 --> 00:16:03,390
exposed as an academic fraud. His work was quite
254
00:16:03,460 --> 00:16:07,294
good on Wikipedia, but he was pretending to be an academic when he indeed wasn't.
255
00:16:07,422 --> 00:16:11,554
And you were quite vocal in that discussion afterwards about whether
256
00:16:11,592 --> 00:16:15,714
or not Wikipedia should require people who
257
00:16:15,752 --> 00:16:18,920
are saying they have qualifications to prove it.
258
00:16:19,450 --> 00:16:23,410
Yes, I do not think that they should require people to have qualifications
259
00:16:23,490 --> 00:16:26,982
simply because people who are junior faculty members
260
00:16:27,036 --> 00:16:30,490
or graduate students like myself, particularly in the humanities,
261
00:16:32,190 --> 00:16:36,166
if you require that, they won't say they're academics.
262
00:16:36,358 --> 00:16:39,798
I mean, if I had known that there would be such a discussion
263
00:16:39,894 --> 00:16:43,974
about qualifications, I would never have said I was an academic.
264
00:16:44,102 --> 00:16:47,150
I would never have made any such claim, but would never have discussed it.
265
00:16:47,300 --> 00:16:50,506
But it is nice to be able to go to somebody's user
266
00:16:50,538 --> 00:16:53,982
page and have them say that, because then I know
267
00:16:54,036 --> 00:16:58,242
that I can discuss certain things with those people
268
00:16:58,376 --> 00:17:01,842
that I would not be able to discuss with other people. It's just a certain
269
00:17:01,896 --> 00:17:06,110
way of talking. If I can talk in a certain shorthand
270
00:17:06,190 --> 00:17:09,766
that's fast and easy and I don't have to explain myself. Like I
271
00:17:09,788 --> 00:17:12,760
can say JStore and somebody knows what I'm talking about,
272
00:17:13,610 --> 00:17:17,266
which is a database where you search for articles
273
00:17:17,298 --> 00:17:20,682
and not everybody knows what that is. Or has access to it. Right,
274
00:17:20,736 --> 00:17:24,442
exactly. And then I don't assume when I'm talking to somebody who
275
00:17:24,496 --> 00:17:28,218
might not be at a university institution that
276
00:17:28,304 --> 00:17:31,260
pays the enormous amount of money to have access to that,
277
00:17:31,870 --> 00:17:34,878
who does not identify that kind of thing on their user page. I would not
278
00:17:34,884 --> 00:17:38,718
make that kind of assumption. The statements that people make about themselves
279
00:17:38,884 --> 00:17:42,766
on their user pages, they help me gauge the
280
00:17:42,788 --> 00:17:46,174
kinds of rhetoric I want to use, the kinds of assumptions
281
00:17:46,222 --> 00:17:49,314
you can begin with. So if someone says that they're a high school student,
282
00:17:49,512 --> 00:17:52,914
I'm going to say and
283
00:17:52,952 --> 00:17:56,094
assume different kinds of research skills,
284
00:17:56,142 --> 00:17:59,766
for example, or research access than I am. If someone's going
285
00:17:59,788 --> 00:18:03,142
to say I live in Chicago, or if someone
286
00:18:03,196 --> 00:18:06,326
says that they've graduated from law school or that kind of
287
00:18:06,348 --> 00:18:10,762
thing, and you can start to assume a greater familiarity with search
288
00:18:10,816 --> 00:18:14,026
engines and databases and that
289
00:18:14,048 --> 00:18:17,690
sort of thing, I find that kind of information very helpful.
290
00:18:18,430 --> 00:18:21,674
I'm not talking about, I have a cat user boxes
291
00:18:21,722 --> 00:18:25,482
here. That's all very fascinating,
292
00:18:25,546 --> 00:18:28,846
but doesn't really help gauge when
293
00:18:28,868 --> 00:18:32,480
you're having a discussion about the quality of an article or anything.
294
00:18:33,430 --> 00:18:37,458
That's why in the aftermath of the SJ thing,
295
00:18:37,624 --> 00:18:41,358
I felt that those statements, they are very helpful.
296
00:18:41,534 --> 00:18:45,230
And whether or not you can actually verify
297
00:18:45,310 --> 00:18:48,360
them, I still think that they should be there.
298
00:18:49,130 --> 00:18:52,882
And even though I can't prove to anybody on Wikipedia
299
00:18:52,946 --> 00:18:56,694
that I am a graduate student. Well, you can, but just choose
300
00:18:56,732 --> 00:19:00,346
not to, right? I mean, I thought it would help people understand
301
00:19:00,448 --> 00:19:03,514
where I'm coming from to know
302
00:19:03,552 --> 00:19:07,850
that that's my orientation towards
303
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:11,518
literature and scholarship. What is the best practical way for
304
00:19:11,604 --> 00:19:15,262
the Wikipedia to become less anti elitist and
305
00:19:15,316 --> 00:19:18,394
correspondingly, the academy to become less anti
306
00:19:18,442 --> 00:19:22,806
Wikipedia. Okay, what do you mean by Wikipedia
307
00:19:22,858 --> 00:19:26,146
being anti elitist? Well, you say on your
308
00:19:26,168 --> 00:19:29,806
user page you have a link to the essay
309
00:19:29,918 --> 00:19:32,850
why Wikipedia must jettison its anti elitism.
310
00:19:34,950 --> 00:19:37,998
Yeah, but just because I have a link doesn't mean that. Well, I assume you
311
00:19:38,024 --> 00:19:41,286
agree with. I agree with everything in it, but I mean,
312
00:19:41,308 --> 00:19:44,760
the term anti elitism in the United States can mean a lot of
313
00:19:46,170 --> 00:19:49,874
know. It can mean like anti latte, anti volvo
314
00:19:49,922 --> 00:19:53,126
driving. Right. All those things. I think
315
00:19:53,228 --> 00:19:57,226
that anti elitism on Wikipedia means something
316
00:19:57,328 --> 00:20:01,782
much more specific than all of that. It means anti intellectualism.
317
00:20:01,926 --> 00:20:06,510
In my life I've come into contact a lot of anti intellectualism.
318
00:20:06,930 --> 00:20:10,906
I grew up in a really rural area that was extremely
319
00:20:10,938 --> 00:20:14,530
anti intellectual. It was almost like anti knowledge.
320
00:20:15,750 --> 00:20:19,214
And I don't see that kind of anti intellectualism
321
00:20:19,262 --> 00:20:22,834
in Wikipedia anywhere. I mean, people who
322
00:20:22,872 --> 00:20:26,434
participate in Wikipedia to some extent can't
323
00:20:26,482 --> 00:20:29,846
be that kind of anti intellectual because they are participating in,
324
00:20:29,948 --> 00:20:33,830
by definition. Yeah. In an enterprise that wants
325
00:20:33,900 --> 00:20:37,430
to, by definition,
326
00:20:38,910 --> 00:20:42,026
disseminate reliable knowledge to the
327
00:20:42,048 --> 00:20:45,562
rest of the world. Where the problems come in
328
00:20:45,696 --> 00:20:48,906
are where people start to dispute what
329
00:20:48,928 --> 00:20:52,734
is reliable knowledge. I have
330
00:20:52,772 --> 00:20:56,142
a different idea about reliable knowledge than some
331
00:20:56,196 --> 00:20:59,310
other editors, and I think that that is something
332
00:20:59,380 --> 00:21:03,602
that Wikipedia in some
333
00:21:03,736 --> 00:21:07,726
real way has not come to grips with. What is reliable.
334
00:21:07,838 --> 00:21:12,110
Right. Encyclopedia Britannica is legitimate
335
00:21:12,190 --> 00:21:16,226
because it's the encyclopedia Britannica. Right. That's the circular reasoning
336
00:21:16,258 --> 00:21:20,246
that people tell themselves they really do. They purchase it
337
00:21:20,268 --> 00:21:23,442
because they say it's encyclopedia Britannica, therefore it's reliable.
338
00:21:23,506 --> 00:21:26,760
Right. Wikipedia really has to prove itself.
339
00:21:27,370 --> 00:21:30,780
It has to prove itself very well.
340
00:21:31,870 --> 00:21:34,906
Slowly and carefully, over a long period of time. Yeah,
341
00:21:35,008 --> 00:21:38,554
exactly. And I think that we have to hold ourselves to
342
00:21:38,592 --> 00:21:42,234
an incredibly high standard to be able to do that. And I think
343
00:21:42,272 --> 00:21:45,440
that the higher the standard we hold ourselves to,
344
00:21:46,130 --> 00:21:48,190
the more sort of impressed,
345
00:21:49,010 --> 00:21:52,142
first of all, the people in the academy will be. You were talking about how
346
00:21:52,196 --> 00:21:55,802
are we going to change people's minds in the academy.
347
00:21:55,946 --> 00:21:59,234
First of all, the more impressed people in the academy will be. And if people
348
00:21:59,272 --> 00:22:02,674
in the academy start saying, wow, Wikipedia really has done a good job on this,
349
00:22:02,712 --> 00:22:06,114
right, that can kind of percolate down, right? To some
350
00:22:06,152 --> 00:22:09,606
extent, because then you'll get, well, wasn't there an article like
351
00:22:09,628 --> 00:22:13,446
published in Nature or something about how I. Use that example quite often. It was
352
00:22:13,548 --> 00:22:17,686
a very comprehensive journal, nature journal study, where they
353
00:22:17,708 --> 00:22:21,610
have similar articles in Wikipedia and in Britannica were compared by
354
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:25,162
peer reviewed effectively by academics in that particular area.
355
00:22:25,216 --> 00:22:28,940
And the result was, ironically, that they both were equally wrong.
356
00:22:29,710 --> 00:22:32,714
Right. They all had the same number of errors, like two to three errors per
357
00:22:32,752 --> 00:22:35,930
article, two or three major, and a. Couple of minor errors or omissions.
358
00:22:36,010 --> 00:22:39,342
And the result was that Wikipedia produced a page saying,
359
00:22:39,476 --> 00:22:43,130
a meter page saying, these are the mistakes that they've identified.
360
00:22:43,290 --> 00:22:46,258
Everyone, let's pitch in to fix them. In a month they were fixed, ticked off.
361
00:22:46,344 --> 00:22:48,740
Britannica, on the other hand, responded by.
362
00:22:51,430 --> 00:22:54,178
They would have to wait years to fix it. Not just that,
363
00:22:54,264 --> 00:22:57,478
they responded. Rather than saying, this is interesting and this
364
00:22:57,484 --> 00:23:01,398
is academic debate and whatnot, they responded by buying a full page advertisement in
365
00:23:01,404 --> 00:23:04,630
the London Times, decrying nature's
366
00:23:05,210 --> 00:23:08,842
methodology. Yeah. And that really shows the difference
367
00:23:08,896 --> 00:23:12,502
in the approach. I would be interested in an analysis
368
00:23:12,566 --> 00:23:16,010
of literature articles and history articles
369
00:23:16,430 --> 00:23:19,994
because I have a feeling that Wikipedia would not come out
370
00:23:20,032 --> 00:23:23,402
so well. They were all science articles, obviously. Yes.
371
00:23:23,536 --> 00:23:27,130
The science articles I have found in Wikipedia to be superb.
372
00:23:27,290 --> 00:23:31,178
The ones that I have read, I am not a science expert.
373
00:23:31,354 --> 00:23:35,678
However, I do live with one and that's handy.
374
00:23:35,854 --> 00:23:39,758
But the ones that I have read are amazing. They're comprehensive.
375
00:23:39,854 --> 00:23:42,658
I can read them as a non scientist myself,
376
00:23:42,824 --> 00:23:46,686
understand them. I am really astounded
377
00:23:46,718 --> 00:23:49,846
by the effort that has been put into them. I live with someone who is
378
00:23:49,868 --> 00:23:53,366
an undergraduate physics major and he was
379
00:23:53,388 --> 00:23:56,646
looking for articles to write because he loves physics and he
380
00:23:56,668 --> 00:24:00,440
would love to write an article. And there was nothing left. There was nothing left.
381
00:24:01,070 --> 00:24:04,906
On the other hand, I can always find something to write about on
382
00:24:04,928 --> 00:24:08,630
the 18th century. There is always a stub rating to be expanded.
383
00:24:08,710 --> 00:24:12,126
There's always a page. All these red links that I
384
00:24:12,148 --> 00:24:16,058
could make. I could make red links all day long. It's incredible.
385
00:24:16,234 --> 00:24:19,614
I mean, for example, one of the best selling novels of the
386
00:24:19,652 --> 00:24:22,590
18th century, Rousseau's Julie,
387
00:24:23,090 --> 00:24:26,930
the New Eloise, which helped
388
00:24:27,270 --> 00:24:30,670
generate an entire new genre, this sentimental novel.
389
00:24:30,750 --> 00:24:34,014
I mean, people went to visit Rousseau, they cried over this novel,
390
00:24:34,062 --> 00:24:38,754
they read it all night. Mean, you know, it's that
391
00:24:38,792 --> 00:24:42,078
kind of bestseller has a couple of paragraphs.
392
00:24:42,254 --> 00:24:46,274
It's doubly difficult to write about or doubly missing on Wikipedia
393
00:24:46,322 --> 00:24:49,130
because one, it's old, and two, it's not in English.
394
00:24:49,550 --> 00:24:53,158
Right. Although there's a translation of the novel
395
00:24:53,254 --> 00:24:57,946
and there's plenty of scholarship on it in English. It's just all
396
00:24:57,968 --> 00:25:02,106
of these major works in the 18th century are missing. And I haven't
397
00:25:02,138 --> 00:25:06,478
done a major survey of the 19th century or the 17th century or
398
00:25:06,564 --> 00:25:10,494
other countries, but I can only imagine that it's equally as
399
00:25:10,532 --> 00:25:13,882
bad in places like Africa or Asia.
400
00:25:14,026 --> 00:25:17,058
This is just one thing that I happen to know a lot about, so I
401
00:25:17,064 --> 00:25:20,654
know what's. But there's many areas
402
00:25:20,702 --> 00:25:24,946
like that, no doubt. So I sort of feel like even though that
403
00:25:25,128 --> 00:25:29,106
survey that they did about science articles was to Wikipedia's great
404
00:25:29,128 --> 00:25:32,710
benefit, I feel that there should be some sort of survey done about
405
00:25:32,860 --> 00:25:35,814
history and literature in these other fields to see, well,
406
00:25:35,852 --> 00:25:38,860
what is it that's missing and what do we need to improve on?
407
00:25:47,630 --> 00:25:52,430
Can I turn your attention to the role of women on Wikipedia
408
00:25:53,170 --> 00:25:56,862
and their proportion, how much they participate, and whether
409
00:25:56,916 --> 00:26:00,654
you feel women are not represented fully in
410
00:26:00,692 --> 00:26:04,514
articles and in editorship? Well, I'd like to turn to editorship first because
411
00:26:04,552 --> 00:26:07,860
I think that's a really interesting question. I'm not sure we know.
412
00:26:09,990 --> 00:26:12,930
First of all, you counted,
413
00:26:13,590 --> 00:26:17,060
interestingly, all the barn stars I was given,
414
00:26:18,170 --> 00:26:21,830
did you read them, what they said? I didn't read
415
00:26:21,900 --> 00:26:25,622
what, the notes that came with them. No. Yeah. Half of them said he.
416
00:26:25,756 --> 00:26:29,286
Really? Yeah. Because many people did not know
417
00:26:29,308 --> 00:26:32,442
my gender for a long time, because I didn't say
418
00:26:32,576 --> 00:26:36,234
on my user page what my gender was. It was very interesting to me.
419
00:26:36,352 --> 00:26:40,282
And people started leaving notes on my user page. I wasn't sure
420
00:26:40,336 --> 00:26:44,160
if you were a he or a she. And it was very interesting.
421
00:26:44,530 --> 00:26:48,960
So finally I did put a box at the top of my talk page that
422
00:26:49,330 --> 00:26:53,406
says that I'm a she because people were getting kind of concerned that
423
00:26:53,428 --> 00:26:56,446
they didn't know. It's interesting that people would find that
424
00:26:56,468 --> 00:27:00,306
important. Yes. It was fascinating to me, first of all, that they did find
425
00:27:00,328 --> 00:27:03,826
it important. It was also fascinating to me that for a long time
426
00:27:03,848 --> 00:27:07,106
people assumed I was a he. I started asking people why
427
00:27:07,128 --> 00:27:10,470
they assumed that. Was it because of my aggressive
428
00:27:11,050 --> 00:27:14,342
style of writing. I wondered if it was that,
429
00:27:14,396 --> 00:27:17,698
because I had assumed that anyone going to my user page would assume I
430
00:27:17,724 --> 00:27:21,114
was a woman, because people who
431
00:27:21,152 --> 00:27:25,130
write about women's issues in literature are most often
432
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,046
a woman. So I had just assumed people would think, well, of course she's
433
00:27:29,078 --> 00:27:32,970
a woman. She's writing about children and she's writing about women.
434
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,858
How could she not be a woman? That's what I did. And I had assumed
435
00:27:36,874 --> 00:27:40,318
that you were female on the basis that you were writing about women's stuff.
436
00:27:40,484 --> 00:27:44,146
And that's equally bad. It is.
437
00:27:44,248 --> 00:27:47,554
But the probability that you would have been
438
00:27:47,592 --> 00:27:50,834
right was so high. Know,
439
00:27:51,032 --> 00:27:54,866
perhaps make the stereotype not so bad. But I did
440
00:27:54,888 --> 00:27:58,146
find it fascinating that I was a he for a very long time. I see
441
00:27:58,168 --> 00:28:01,894
one here. The Barn star of high culture, given to you in July this
442
00:28:01,932 --> 00:28:05,762
year. This Barn star is awarded to our demet for his FA
443
00:28:05,826 --> 00:28:09,158
and GA work on classical era topics such as Mary Bulson Graft and
444
00:28:09,164 --> 00:28:10,390
Joseph Priestley.
445
00:28:12,750 --> 00:28:16,362
And I love it. Actually, there was a whole discussion on my talk page
446
00:28:16,416 --> 00:28:19,546
a while ago about what gender. I was on your
447
00:28:19,568 --> 00:28:23,566
talk page and you didn't answer. Well, actually, I think
448
00:28:23,588 --> 00:28:27,454
I said something about embracing all genders, because that was
449
00:28:27,492 --> 00:28:30,800
fabulous. I didn't really want to be either one.
450
00:28:34,530 --> 00:28:38,258
Yeah, I actually thought that was fun. So, with the
451
00:28:38,264 --> 00:28:42,466
editorship, I'm not really sure we know how many men and women are there.
452
00:28:42,568 --> 00:28:45,410
People declare their genders with user boxes,
453
00:28:45,850 --> 00:28:48,934
but they could be declaring anything with that. And of course,
454
00:28:48,972 --> 00:28:52,594
I've seen male and female user
455
00:28:52,642 --> 00:28:54,360
boxes on the same page.
456
00:28:56,490 --> 00:28:59,654
I don't know what's going on with that. To some extent,
457
00:28:59,702 --> 00:29:03,658
you assume it's more male simply because it's more
458
00:29:03,744 --> 00:29:08,250
technology oriented, but I think that's probably a dangerous assumption.
459
00:29:08,750 --> 00:29:11,834
How much data do we really have on this?
460
00:29:12,032 --> 00:29:15,486
The reason I asked recently was because there was a mailing list set
461
00:29:15,508 --> 00:29:18,938
up a while ago, and I'm not sure if it still exists, called wiki
462
00:29:18,954 --> 00:29:22,362
chicks, which was a mailing list exclusively for female
463
00:29:22,426 --> 00:29:26,050
editors of Wikipedia. I've never heard that.
464
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,406
Got a lot of people a bit angry on the basis
465
00:29:29,438 --> 00:29:32,946
that it was exclusivist, but in a affirmative action kind of
466
00:29:32,968 --> 00:29:35,886
way. Now, at Wikimania,
467
00:29:35,918 --> 00:29:39,426
Taiwan, at the opening speech by Florence de
468
00:29:39,448 --> 00:29:43,186
Vivoard, or the chairperson of the foundation,
469
00:29:43,298 --> 00:29:46,150
there was a special table set aside for wiki chicks.
470
00:29:47,930 --> 00:29:51,366
Their efforts are laudable in the sense of promoting and providing
471
00:29:51,398 --> 00:29:54,954
a community for female editors on the community. But what
472
00:29:54,992 --> 00:29:58,406
is your initial reaction to that idea? I guess my initial reaction
473
00:29:58,438 --> 00:30:02,750
is, do they feel isolated?
474
00:30:03,650 --> 00:30:07,614
Because usually such communities help people who
475
00:30:07,652 --> 00:30:11,200
feel isolated. So, for example, there are often
476
00:30:12,290 --> 00:30:15,786
physics for women groups, right? In physics
477
00:30:15,818 --> 00:30:20,430
departments. Because there are so few women in those departments, they feel very isolated.
478
00:30:20,510 --> 00:30:24,194
It's a very different kind of culture, and so it's often good to have those
479
00:30:24,232 --> 00:30:28,262
kinds of groups. Right. I can imagine such a group for men
480
00:30:28,316 --> 00:30:32,006
in an english department because they're often dominated by women.
481
00:30:32,108 --> 00:30:35,400
Right. So I guess my question would be,
482
00:30:36,250 --> 00:30:39,318
are women feeling isolated on Wikipedia
483
00:30:39,414 --> 00:30:42,780
that they would need such a group? Do you?
484
00:30:43,790 --> 00:30:47,462
No, but I never advertised
485
00:30:47,526 --> 00:30:50,880
really what my gender was. So you have now, really?
486
00:30:51,650 --> 00:30:55,386
Yeah, until very recently, because I never really viewed
487
00:30:55,418 --> 00:31:00,126
that as particularly important to what
488
00:31:00,148 --> 00:31:04,070
I was doing. Actually, I kind of disliked
489
00:31:04,090 --> 00:31:08,020
the idea that only women can write about women's issues or
490
00:31:08,390 --> 00:31:09,700
that kind of thing,
491
00:31:12,710 --> 00:31:16,242
even though that is very common. And that argument
492
00:31:16,306 --> 00:31:19,814
has been made particularly for things like in
493
00:31:19,852 --> 00:31:23,240
english departments anyway, for african american literature, for example,
494
00:31:23,690 --> 00:31:25,670
that, I don't know, perhaps.
495
00:31:26,890 --> 00:31:30,394
Is this group made up of people who've been on Wikipedia for many years?
496
00:31:30,512 --> 00:31:32,620
I've only been on Wikipedia for a.
497
00:31:33,550 --> 00:31:37,626
Even. It's not a very long about your
498
00:31:37,728 --> 00:31:41,146
work. Not only are you writing a dissertation and
499
00:31:41,328 --> 00:31:44,526
professional academic and you're doing all this amazing stuff, you've only been here for
500
00:31:44,548 --> 00:31:47,694
a year. If the women
501
00:31:47,732 --> 00:31:51,006
have been on Wikipedia for like three or four years, I'm sure they have a
502
00:31:51,028 --> 00:31:54,530
much better idea of perhaps the isolating
503
00:31:56,470 --> 00:31:59,780
effect of being a woman on Wikipedia or something.
504
00:32:00,150 --> 00:32:04,562
I wonder if it would be interesting to have it be
505
00:32:04,616 --> 00:32:08,930
a group dedicated to women's issues on Wikipedia
506
00:32:09,010 --> 00:32:12,966
rather than women on Wikipedia. So people who are
507
00:32:12,988 --> 00:32:16,646
interested in making sure that women don't feel excluded or isolated on
508
00:32:16,668 --> 00:32:19,640
Wikipedia, because men can be interested in those issues.
509
00:32:20,010 --> 00:32:24,162
Men can be a champion for mean,
510
00:32:24,236 --> 00:32:28,090
I know that, for example, a lot of feminists have said,
511
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,582
no, they can't, that that's not a good thing, actually,
512
00:32:31,636 --> 00:32:34,702
that women should be the people championing women's own
513
00:32:34,756 --> 00:32:38,574
causes. But I don't think that there should be such a
514
00:32:38,612 --> 00:32:41,854
division. There should be people arguing for
515
00:32:41,892 --> 00:32:44,962
women, right? Not just women arguing for women and
516
00:32:45,016 --> 00:32:48,446
men arguing for men. I think that's where in academia,
517
00:32:48,478 --> 00:32:52,194
for example, we've had so many problems with women
518
00:32:52,232 --> 00:32:55,490
scientists, for example, arguing that they should have family leave time,
519
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,262
et cetera, and men never arguing for that.
520
00:32:58,396 --> 00:33:02,438
Men who have families should have family leave time too. And if it
521
00:33:02,444 --> 00:33:05,286
were people arguing for family leave time,
522
00:33:05,468 --> 00:33:08,678
I think that there would be a lot less discrimination against
523
00:33:08,764 --> 00:33:12,394
female scientists and it would be a sort of more
524
00:33:12,512 --> 00:33:15,420
equal atmosphere, if you know what I mean.
525
00:33:16,190 --> 00:33:20,122
Well, I think we should probably leave it there at that quite large
526
00:33:20,176 --> 00:33:23,526
digression from where we started up at barn Stars
527
00:33:23,558 --> 00:33:26,890
and Mary Wilson Craft. Although it has a lot of contemporary
528
00:33:26,970 --> 00:33:30,126
relationship, I hope that one
529
00:33:30,148 --> 00:33:34,250
day soon you'll be able to cast off your mask
530
00:33:34,330 --> 00:33:36,640
and proclaim to your faculty into the world.
531
00:33:39,010 --> 00:33:42,494
I am the world scholar on Mary Wilson Craft and everyone around
532
00:33:42,532 --> 00:33:44,960
the world has been reading my work much more than you.
533
00:33:47,050 --> 00:33:50,418
And I truly hope that happens. It saddens
534
00:33:50,434 --> 00:33:54,838
me greatly to hear that you are not only hiding your
535
00:33:54,924 --> 00:33:58,278
knowledge and experience because you think it might be embarrassing,
536
00:33:58,374 --> 00:34:02,026
but it's actually going to damage your career being an
537
00:34:02,048 --> 00:34:05,498
authority on a website. Yeah,
538
00:34:05,584 --> 00:34:09,238
I know. It worries me for the future of the Internet,
539
00:34:09,334 --> 00:34:13,158
actually. I think it'll change. I think it'll change the
540
00:34:13,184 --> 00:34:16,318
conclusion to my thesis, I hope, if I can justify the
541
00:34:16,324 --> 00:34:19,502
sentence, will be along the lines that just as it has become
542
00:34:19,556 --> 00:34:23,594
necessary for academics to publish in journals, in peer reviewed journals,
543
00:34:23,722 --> 00:34:27,074
and that's a required part of the job, it'll become, over the next
544
00:34:27,112 --> 00:34:30,690
decade or so, required part of the job for academics to
545
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:34,158
not necessarily write, but at least monitor and participate in the articles
546
00:34:34,174 --> 00:34:37,814
on Wikipedia in which they are an expert. Oh,
547
00:34:37,852 --> 00:34:42,706
the next decade, I think that's optimistic. But perhaps the next quarter
548
00:34:42,738 --> 00:34:46,600
century, if. We'Re still around that long.
549
00:34:47,210 --> 00:34:51,740
Oh, I think it will be. I think it will be. It's inserting itself into
550
00:34:52,430 --> 00:34:55,706
the ether, I think as long
551
00:34:55,728 --> 00:34:58,954
as it can sustain funds. Right. It's all about
552
00:34:58,992 --> 00:35:02,620
the money. Yeah, well, that's a whole episode in itself.
553
00:35:02,990 --> 00:35:06,058
Yeah, exactly. So thank you so much for spending
554
00:35:06,074 --> 00:35:08,878
your time with us today. I know it's been difficult trying to catch on to
555
00:35:08,884 --> 00:35:12,974
you. You've got a very busy life. Thank you. Well, and we're 13 hours
556
00:35:13,012 --> 00:35:16,254
apart. Yeah. Thank you very much.
557
00:35:16,292 --> 00:35:17,420
You're welcome. Thank you very much.
00:00:00,090 --> 00:00:00,640
Um.
2
00:00:04,050 --> 00:00:07,806
This is Wikipedia Weekly, the podcast for anyone who's ever said.
3
00:00:07,908 --> 00:00:11,294
Well, actually, Wikipedia has a really good article on that.
4
00:00:11,492 --> 00:00:15,034
Today we talk to user awadowitz, the Wiki authority
5
00:00:15,082 --> 00:00:18,746
on 18th century english literature. Barn nun. She's got bronze.
6
00:00:18,778 --> 00:00:22,474
Good article review. Barn stars four. Good article. Barn stars
7
00:00:22,522 --> 00:00:25,906
four. Barn stars of diligence, literary stars, working women's
8
00:00:25,938 --> 00:00:28,630
stars, and my favorite, the fist of respect.
9
00:00:35,610 --> 00:00:38,374
Hello and welcome to the show. How are you going today?
10
00:00:38,492 --> 00:00:41,846
I'm doing well, thank you. Is that your name? That your
11
00:00:41,868 --> 00:00:44,714
username? Awadowit. It's a very interesting.
12
00:00:44,752 --> 00:00:48,282
Yeah, you can make up any sort of pronunciation you want,
13
00:00:48,336 --> 00:00:51,966
I think. Okay, so what
14
00:00:51,988 --> 00:00:55,690
is your most recently featured article? Because I think you have about 13.
15
00:00:55,770 --> 00:00:58,778
Is that correct? Yeah, you know, I don't
16
00:00:58,794 --> 00:01:01,040
even know the number.
17
00:01:02,210 --> 00:01:04,900
The most recently featured one.
18
00:01:05,990 --> 00:01:09,140
I don't know, actually, might be.
19
00:01:09,590 --> 00:01:13,326
It's certainly one of the ones on Mary Wilsoncraft. I think it's the vindication
20
00:01:13,358 --> 00:01:16,498
of the rights of men. The vindication might be the ones of men. A lot
21
00:01:16,504 --> 00:01:19,846
of people, I imagine we've heard of the vindication of the rights of women.
22
00:01:19,948 --> 00:01:23,586
Mary Wilson cast being one of the most famous first wave
23
00:01:23,618 --> 00:01:26,600
feminists. Well, she's not a first wave feminist. No,
24
00:01:27,950 --> 00:01:31,466
because there is no feminist movement until the end of the
25
00:01:31,488 --> 00:01:34,966
19th century and the beginning of the 20th
26
00:01:34,998 --> 00:01:39,178
century. Actually, if you read the feminism page,
27
00:01:39,264 --> 00:01:42,686
which is fairly good on Wikipedia, you can read the history of
28
00:01:42,708 --> 00:01:46,000
first wave feminism. I'm showing my. Oh,
29
00:01:46,850 --> 00:01:50,378
you can probably call Mary
30
00:01:50,394 --> 00:01:53,710
Wilsoncraft, in my opinion, a proto feminist.
31
00:01:53,870 --> 00:01:57,218
And actually, on the vindication of the
32
00:01:57,224 --> 00:02:01,038
rights of woman page, one of the foremost Wilson
33
00:02:01,054 --> 00:02:04,386
Kraft scholars, Barbara Taylor, talks about why or why
34
00:02:04,408 --> 00:02:08,214
not. You can call her an actual feminist, but she
35
00:02:08,252 --> 00:02:11,730
certainly wasn't part of the historical first wave
36
00:02:11,810 --> 00:02:15,126
movement, since there was no feminist movement at the
37
00:02:15,148 --> 00:02:17,830
time, and she would never have used that word herself.
38
00:02:18,190 --> 00:02:21,062
For 100 years after her death,
39
00:02:21,206 --> 00:02:24,534
she was reviled as a prostitute and a whore.
40
00:02:24,662 --> 00:02:27,740
Gee, it's really a fascinating story.
41
00:02:29,150 --> 00:02:32,350
One of the reasons I sort of got interested in her writings.
42
00:02:33,090 --> 00:02:36,426
After her death, her husband, William Godwin,
43
00:02:36,458 --> 00:02:40,394
the philosopher, was brokenhearted and decided
44
00:02:40,442 --> 00:02:44,814
to write a biography of her. And he was inspired by Rousseau's
45
00:02:44,862 --> 00:02:48,146
new ideas about how biographies and autobiographies should
46
00:02:48,168 --> 00:02:51,714
look. Rousseau had written a very influential autobiography called
47
00:02:51,752 --> 00:02:55,154
the Confessions, and if somebody could expand that
48
00:02:55,192 --> 00:02:58,434
page on Wikipedia, that would be wonderful. Sort of a stub
49
00:02:58,482 --> 00:03:01,862
right now. But it was incredibly influential. It was
50
00:03:01,916 --> 00:03:05,718
a bestseller, and he sort of wrote this 400 page
51
00:03:05,884 --> 00:03:09,142
sort of outpouring of his soul that he was going to write
52
00:03:09,196 --> 00:03:12,666
exactly what he thought. And so Godwin took this to heart,
53
00:03:12,768 --> 00:03:16,166
and he said, well, I'm going to write exactly what Mary Wilsoncraft's
54
00:03:16,198 --> 00:03:19,722
life was like. And he said everything about her that he knew
55
00:03:19,776 --> 00:03:22,426
that she had had an affair.
56
00:03:22,618 --> 00:03:26,282
She had tried to have a threesome with Henry Fusili
57
00:03:26,346 --> 00:03:29,920
and his wife. She had had an illegitimate child.
58
00:03:31,170 --> 00:03:34,830
When are we talking here? Yes, at the end of the 18th century,
59
00:03:35,250 --> 00:03:39,230
in the 1780s and 1790s. This is completely unacceptable.
60
00:03:39,390 --> 00:03:42,574
Obviously, in many places now, it still is unacceptable.
61
00:03:42,702 --> 00:03:46,262
Then it was even more unacceptable. And when
62
00:03:46,316 --> 00:03:49,682
this was published, people were outraged.
63
00:03:49,746 --> 00:03:52,118
They were shocked. They were bald. Right.
64
00:03:52,284 --> 00:03:55,794
And whatever respect
65
00:03:55,842 --> 00:03:59,226
she might have gained as a writer was totally lost, because. She did
66
00:03:59,248 --> 00:04:02,762
have incredible respect in her day. She was the editor of
67
00:04:02,816 --> 00:04:05,610
really important magazine and literary journal,
68
00:04:06,270 --> 00:04:10,406
the Analytical Review. Until this biography
69
00:04:10,438 --> 00:04:14,318
was published. And once it was published, that really was completely
70
00:04:14,404 --> 00:04:17,706
lost for about a century. So she was only revived
71
00:04:17,738 --> 00:04:21,418
as an important and respected character in the late 19th
72
00:04:21,434 --> 00:04:28,338
century. Yeah, so once what
73
00:04:28,344 --> 00:04:31,220
you were talking about is the first away feminist movement comes along.
74
00:04:32,150 --> 00:04:35,626
People like Emma Goldman, Lucretia Mott,
75
00:04:35,678 --> 00:04:39,046
some of these figures, they try to resurrect Wilson Kraft, but it's very
76
00:04:39,068 --> 00:04:42,454
difficult because there's such this
77
00:04:42,492 --> 00:04:46,278
association with her of these terrible sort
78
00:04:46,284 --> 00:04:50,326
of immoral acts and values that it's
79
00:04:50,358 --> 00:04:53,994
difficult for them to even use her writings. They talk about being
80
00:04:54,032 --> 00:04:57,238
inspired by her life. Virginia Wolf referred
81
00:04:57,254 --> 00:05:01,198
to her experiments in living as something to be inspired by.
82
00:05:01,284 --> 00:05:05,390
But it really was difficult
83
00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:08,958
for these women to use her writings or even refer to her.
84
00:05:09,044 --> 00:05:12,654
And that's why it's even sketchy to
85
00:05:12,692 --> 00:05:15,986
say that Wilson Kraft is like an inspiration for
86
00:05:16,008 --> 00:05:19,950
the feminist movement, because it's so oblique. Any references
87
00:05:20,030 --> 00:05:23,826
to her to prove that is very difficult.
88
00:05:24,008 --> 00:05:27,554
Very difficult. Okay, well, what is your interest in Wilsoncraft
89
00:05:27,602 --> 00:05:30,854
and in 18th century literature, children's literature? Well,
90
00:05:30,892 --> 00:05:34,870
originally, I became interested in Wilson Craft's
91
00:05:35,210 --> 00:05:39,094
story called original Stories from real life, which is
92
00:05:39,132 --> 00:05:42,778
a book that she wrote for children. Not many people know
93
00:05:42,784 --> 00:05:46,714
that Wilsoncraft wrote children's books, but indeed she did. She also
94
00:05:46,752 --> 00:05:49,590
wrote a book called thoughts on the education of daughters,
95
00:05:49,670 --> 00:05:53,166
about how to raise a daughter all the way from
96
00:05:53,268 --> 00:05:56,846
infancy to marriage. And I became fascinated by
97
00:05:56,868 --> 00:06:00,346
the fact that Wilsoncraft was interested in education throughout
98
00:06:00,378 --> 00:06:03,614
her entire life. Almost all her books have something to do with education.
99
00:06:03,812 --> 00:06:08,178
So I started reading not only Wilsoncraft's book,
100
00:06:08,264 --> 00:06:11,614
but also women such as Anna Letitia Barbeau,
101
00:06:11,662 --> 00:06:14,526
Sarah Trimmer, Mary Martha Sherwood.
102
00:06:14,638 --> 00:06:18,418
And I really wanted to understand the answers
103
00:06:18,434 --> 00:06:21,778
to the question, which I haven't been able to find yet. But I'm
104
00:06:21,794 --> 00:06:25,622
still searching for of how it was that women who did not
105
00:06:25,676 --> 00:06:29,750
share any political similarity, because women
106
00:06:29,820 --> 00:06:33,414
such as Sarah Trimmer or Hannah Moore are generally
107
00:06:33,462 --> 00:06:37,194
viewed as extremely conservative, what might be called
108
00:06:37,312 --> 00:06:41,238
anti jacobin at the time, they were against the ideals
109
00:06:41,254 --> 00:06:45,938
of the French Revolution, whereas women such as Barbeau orcraft
110
00:06:45,974 --> 00:06:49,194
were very much in support of the French Revolution. Wilson Kraft even went to France
111
00:06:49,242 --> 00:06:53,026
in support of the French Revolution. But they all just writing children's books. She's getting
112
00:06:53,048 --> 00:06:55,940
involved in the politics of the day. That's right. Yeah, exactly.
113
00:06:56,710 --> 00:07:00,260
But they all supported education for women.
114
00:07:00,870 --> 00:07:04,114
And oftentimes writing for children was a way
115
00:07:04,152 --> 00:07:07,170
that they could get involved in the public sphere.
116
00:07:07,990 --> 00:07:11,750
They could format that. You could talk to women
117
00:07:11,820 --> 00:07:15,590
via children's books. Well, actually you could talk to the nation,
118
00:07:16,810 --> 00:07:19,962
because most of these women would write
119
00:07:20,016 --> 00:07:23,974
and say, well, I am going to describe the ideal citizen.
120
00:07:24,102 --> 00:07:27,834
And the way to educate the ideal citizen is this.
121
00:07:27,952 --> 00:07:31,834
And then it's described in their children's literature. The ideal
122
00:07:31,882 --> 00:07:34,350
citizen is the future for the nation.
123
00:07:35,090 --> 00:07:38,894
And that's really fascinating that
124
00:07:38,932 --> 00:07:42,382
they are stepping forth and saying, I feel
125
00:07:42,436 --> 00:07:45,710
that I have the right to participate in this discussion
126
00:07:45,790 --> 00:07:49,220
about what the future of our country is going to look like.
127
00:07:49,590 --> 00:07:53,266
And what's even more fascinating is that all of these
128
00:07:53,288 --> 00:07:56,926
women across this entire political spectrum have very much the same
129
00:07:56,968 --> 00:08:00,486
idea of what that future citizen should look like. I really want to talk about
130
00:08:00,508 --> 00:08:03,986
the fairy tale thing, actually, because it's quite fascinating. They're anti fairy
131
00:08:04,018 --> 00:08:08,730
tale. They believed in a rational worldview
132
00:08:09,710 --> 00:08:12,902
and were determined to oust
133
00:08:12,966 --> 00:08:16,950
fairy tales because they perpetuated superstition
134
00:08:17,030 --> 00:08:18,650
and irrationality.
135
00:08:20,270 --> 00:08:23,486
Obviously, that didn't work out. I mean, we live in
136
00:08:23,508 --> 00:08:27,262
a fairy tale ridden world for children. But it's fascinating to read their
137
00:08:27,316 --> 00:08:30,990
views on fairy tales because they really
138
00:08:31,060 --> 00:08:34,734
were concerned that children were going to believe in stories
139
00:08:34,862 --> 00:08:37,730
that were totally untrue, such as ghost stories.
140
00:08:38,790 --> 00:08:42,098
Why don't we go back to the beginning? Where are
141
00:08:42,104 --> 00:08:45,670
you speaking to us from today? The United States
142
00:08:45,820 --> 00:08:50,226
in the midwest. Okay. And you're a university
143
00:08:50,338 --> 00:08:54,306
academic, but you prefer to remain
144
00:08:54,418 --> 00:08:57,560
quite anonymous. Can you elaborate on that?
145
00:08:58,670 --> 00:09:02,250
Yes, I'm a graduate student, which means
146
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:06,118
that my employment is in the humanities,
147
00:09:06,214 --> 00:09:08,650
which means that my employment is rather precarious.
148
00:09:09,710 --> 00:09:13,194
I don't have a job yet. And in the humanities,
149
00:09:13,322 --> 00:09:17,114
Wikipedia does not have quite the same acceptance.
150
00:09:17,242 --> 00:09:20,480
I don't think that it does in the sciences. Don't I know it.
151
00:09:21,250 --> 00:09:25,326
Tell me about it. Well, I'm currently an
152
00:09:25,348 --> 00:09:29,186
undergraduate. Yes, I'm taking my honors thesis in the school of
153
00:09:29,208 --> 00:09:33,166
history, on the academic lineage of Wikipedia, and how Wikipedia
154
00:09:33,198 --> 00:09:36,462
relates to historiographical arguments on authorship
155
00:09:36,526 --> 00:09:40,246
or the authority of knowledge, on censorship and things like
156
00:09:40,268 --> 00:09:44,338
that. And it's not only difficult to get them to accept
157
00:09:44,354 --> 00:09:47,254
that it might be an interesting topic to start with,
158
00:09:47,372 --> 00:09:51,094
but accept that you could even deal with Wikipedia
159
00:09:51,142 --> 00:09:54,998
in the context of academic debates in historiography.
160
00:09:55,174 --> 00:09:58,726
So before I even can write thesis properly,
161
00:09:58,758 --> 00:10:02,426
I have to convince the people in the faculty that it is a legitimate
162
00:10:02,458 --> 00:10:05,726
topic of concern that they should be aware of. You have
163
00:10:05,748 --> 00:10:07,760
to find the right person. Yes,
164
00:10:08,770 --> 00:10:12,320
that's what it's all about, finding the right person who's interested.
165
00:10:13,570 --> 00:10:17,906
So you're worried that if you publicize publicly your interest and
166
00:10:18,008 --> 00:10:21,298
experience on Wikipedia, that you won't get a job because you'd be laughed out of
167
00:10:21,304 --> 00:10:25,154
town. I'm very concerned, actually, I'm very
168
00:10:25,192 --> 00:10:29,014
concerned about that. I'm concerned that people will think that
169
00:10:29,052 --> 00:10:32,514
perhaps I've wasted time that I could have spent
170
00:10:32,642 --> 00:10:36,898
on my dissertation, time I could have spent publishing articles.
171
00:10:36,994 --> 00:10:40,694
That's really sad. Yeah. And it is because I
172
00:10:40,732 --> 00:10:44,602
really view the time that I have spent working
173
00:10:44,656 --> 00:10:48,810
on things for Wikipedia, which is related to what I'm studying
174
00:10:49,150 --> 00:10:52,240
as sort of public service,
175
00:10:53,730 --> 00:10:57,102
as part of being a public intellectual, because I'm often
176
00:10:57,156 --> 00:11:01,022
engaged in conversations with people on Wikipedia where I feel like
177
00:11:01,156 --> 00:11:05,406
I'm explaining what it means to be a scholar and
178
00:11:05,588 --> 00:11:09,154
I'm explaining even down to the level of,
179
00:11:09,192 --> 00:11:11,902
well, here's how you write a paragraph, or here's where you write a sentence.
180
00:11:11,966 --> 00:11:15,334
Right? Is that a wasted time? No, I don't think so,
181
00:11:15,372 --> 00:11:19,526
because that's what I do all the time. Yeah, that's what I do as
182
00:11:19,708 --> 00:11:23,126
that's my field, rhetoric and
183
00:11:23,148 --> 00:11:26,646
language. And I also feel that when,
184
00:11:26,748 --> 00:11:30,018
for example, you type into Google any of the things that I
185
00:11:30,044 --> 00:11:33,846
study in the 18th century, and they come up and they're empty in Wikipedia.
186
00:11:33,958 --> 00:11:37,610
I mean, the 18th century is just really sad on Wikipedia.
187
00:11:38,030 --> 00:11:40,800
Well, not needful, thanks to you. Well,
188
00:11:41,330 --> 00:11:43,440
13 articles or whatever, please.
189
00:11:45,410 --> 00:11:48,974
Since so many people in the world are looking at
190
00:11:49,012 --> 00:11:52,362
us first, why don't the people who have the knowledge,
191
00:11:52,506 --> 00:11:55,682
who already have taken the years to study, yeah,
192
00:11:55,736 --> 00:11:58,754
why don't they just donate it?
193
00:11:58,792 --> 00:12:02,686
I mean, I belong to a listserve of 18th century
194
00:12:02,798 --> 00:12:06,406
academics, and I was so distressed to see that one person said they
195
00:12:06,428 --> 00:12:09,734
had checked the Samuel Johnson article and that it was
196
00:12:09,852 --> 00:12:13,638
filled with errors. And I thought to myself,
197
00:12:13,804 --> 00:12:17,590
why didn't you fix them? It would have been
198
00:12:17,660 --> 00:12:21,322
easy for you who had studied for 20 years.
199
00:12:21,456 --> 00:12:24,938
But no, I bet the people that you work with on
200
00:12:24,944 --> 00:12:28,714
a day to day basis have no idea that you are most
201
00:12:28,752 --> 00:12:32,934
probably the world's most foremost resource
202
00:12:33,062 --> 00:12:36,682
for information about that period or about english literature
203
00:12:36,746 --> 00:12:40,906
of that period. That more people read your work about Mary Wilson
204
00:12:40,938 --> 00:12:44,842
Craft than the officially recognized expert on Mary Wilson Craft.
205
00:12:44,986 --> 00:12:48,162
It's kind of scary. Sometimes I think about this,
206
00:12:48,216 --> 00:12:52,254
that what I have written about Mary Wilson Craft is now populated
207
00:12:52,302 --> 00:12:55,862
all over the web. I see it sometimes on other websites because
208
00:12:55,916 --> 00:12:59,270
they copy off of Wikipedia and it sometimes
209
00:12:59,340 --> 00:13:03,346
frightens me. It's kind of disturbing.
210
00:13:03,458 --> 00:13:06,038
You're secretly famous. Yeah,
211
00:13:06,124 --> 00:13:09,794
exactly. But it is a sort of fascinating
212
00:13:09,842 --> 00:13:13,946
thing. And every once in a while when I meet somebody who is a
213
00:13:13,968 --> 00:13:17,786
professor or another graduate student who I think might be receptive to the idea,
214
00:13:17,968 --> 00:13:20,762
I mentioned it and I say, you know, it would be a really good idea
215
00:13:20,816 --> 00:13:23,520
if you wrote an article because.
216
00:13:24,210 --> 00:13:27,966
But it's very hard to convince people that they should
217
00:13:28,148 --> 00:13:31,278
spend their time doing something that they're not going to get any credit for
218
00:13:31,364 --> 00:13:35,170
on their cv or when they're applying for tenure.
219
00:13:35,510 --> 00:13:39,058
But getting a job in the
220
00:13:39,064 --> 00:13:43,086
humanities is a very difficult proposition.
221
00:13:43,198 --> 00:13:46,840
About 200 to 400 people apply for every job,
222
00:13:47,290 --> 00:13:51,398
and they are just always looking for a reason to throw somebody
223
00:13:51,484 --> 00:13:54,742
out of that pool. It's truly sad that
224
00:13:54,796 --> 00:13:59,750
that should come to arbitrary
225
00:14:00,090 --> 00:14:03,546
draws a parallel in my mind between what you were saying about Mary Wilsoncraft and
226
00:14:03,568 --> 00:14:07,238
how her and her contemporaries were not allowed to participate
227
00:14:07,254 --> 00:14:10,474
in the public debate on citizenship because they
228
00:14:10,512 --> 00:14:14,078
were women, and so they came around it in a sort
229
00:14:14,084 --> 00:14:17,326
of a secret way by writing children's books. You seem to be having a
230
00:14:17,348 --> 00:14:20,682
similar approach, that you're not allowed to broach
231
00:14:20,746 --> 00:14:25,118
the topic of freeing out knowledge because you're
232
00:14:25,124 --> 00:14:28,638
not allowed to broach the topic of being an academic because you're a Wikipedia
233
00:14:28,654 --> 00:14:32,366
writer and those two things are mutually exclusive. So you come about it a secret
234
00:14:32,398 --> 00:14:35,578
way and produce your secretly famous,
235
00:14:35,614 --> 00:14:39,286
produce your work and then hide the fact. It's sort
236
00:14:39,308 --> 00:14:42,360
of bit of a parallel, wouldn't you say?
237
00:14:44,810 --> 00:14:48,806
I think I'm a little bit more open about being an academic than poor Mary
238
00:14:48,838 --> 00:14:52,346
Wilson Craft, whose life I feel was a great
239
00:14:52,368 --> 00:14:57,514
deal more tragic than my own. But I
240
00:14:57,552 --> 00:15:01,726
guess I feel that perhaps someday I will be able to
241
00:15:01,828 --> 00:15:05,342
post on my user page if I'm lucky enough
242
00:15:05,396 --> 00:15:06,960
to get an academic job.
243
00:15:09,410 --> 00:15:12,898
On masks. Right, exactly. I want to be
244
00:15:12,904 --> 00:15:16,340
able to do that. I want to be able to be transparent. I do.
245
00:15:17,350 --> 00:15:20,594
But the danger, I feel
246
00:15:20,632 --> 00:15:24,094
it because I've been on job search committees
247
00:15:24,222 --> 00:15:31,270
and I've seen what they say about candidates and
248
00:15:31,340 --> 00:15:35,990
I've read the Chronicle of Higher education's columns about job
249
00:15:36,060 --> 00:15:39,530
search committees, and it makes me wary.
250
00:15:48,430 --> 00:15:52,174
You were saying before we started this interview about
251
00:15:52,372 --> 00:15:56,350
in the aftermath of the SJ controversy, where a person
252
00:15:56,420 --> 00:16:00,014
was very publicly kicked out of Wikipedia because he had been
253
00:16:00,052 --> 00:16:03,390
exposed as an academic fraud. His work was quite
254
00:16:03,460 --> 00:16:07,294
good on Wikipedia, but he was pretending to be an academic when he indeed wasn't.
255
00:16:07,422 --> 00:16:11,554
And you were quite vocal in that discussion afterwards about whether
256
00:16:11,592 --> 00:16:15,714
or not Wikipedia should require people who
257
00:16:15,752 --> 00:16:18,920
are saying they have qualifications to prove it.
258
00:16:19,450 --> 00:16:23,410
Yes, I do not think that they should require people to have qualifications
259
00:16:23,490 --> 00:16:26,982
simply because people who are junior faculty members
260
00:16:27,036 --> 00:16:30,490
or graduate students like myself, particularly in the humanities,
261
00:16:32,190 --> 00:16:36,166
if you require that, they won't say they're academics.
262
00:16:36,358 --> 00:16:39,798
I mean, if I had known that there would be such a discussion
263
00:16:39,894 --> 00:16:43,974
about qualifications, I would never have said I was an academic.
264
00:16:44,102 --> 00:16:47,150
I would never have made any such claim, but would never have discussed it.
265
00:16:47,300 --> 00:16:50,506
But it is nice to be able to go to somebody's user
266
00:16:50,538 --> 00:16:53,982
page and have them say that, because then I know
267
00:16:54,036 --> 00:16:58,242
that I can discuss certain things with those people
268
00:16:58,376 --> 00:17:01,842
that I would not be able to discuss with other people. It's just a certain
269
00:17:01,896 --> 00:17:06,110
way of talking. If I can talk in a certain shorthand
270
00:17:06,190 --> 00:17:09,766
that's fast and easy and I don't have to explain myself. Like I
271
00:17:09,788 --> 00:17:12,760
can say JStore and somebody knows what I'm talking about,
272
00:17:13,610 --> 00:17:17,266
which is a database where you search for articles
273
00:17:17,298 --> 00:17:20,682
and not everybody knows what that is. Or has access to it. Right,
274
00:17:20,736 --> 00:17:24,442
exactly. And then I don't assume when I'm talking to somebody who
275
00:17:24,496 --> 00:17:28,218
might not be at a university institution that
276
00:17:28,304 --> 00:17:31,260
pays the enormous amount of money to have access to that,
277
00:17:31,870 --> 00:17:34,878
who does not identify that kind of thing on their user page. I would not
278
00:17:34,884 --> 00:17:38,718
make that kind of assumption. The statements that people make about themselves
279
00:17:38,884 --> 00:17:42,766
on their user pages, they help me gauge the
280
00:17:42,788 --> 00:17:46,174
kinds of rhetoric I want to use, the kinds of assumptions
281
00:17:46,222 --> 00:17:49,314
you can begin with. So if someone says that they're a high school student,
282
00:17:49,512 --> 00:17:52,914
I'm going to say and
283
00:17:52,952 --> 00:17:56,094
assume different kinds of research skills,
284
00:17:56,142 --> 00:17:59,766
for example, or research access than I am. If someone's going
285
00:17:59,788 --> 00:18:03,142
to say I live in Chicago, or if someone
286
00:18:03,196 --> 00:18:06,326
says that they've graduated from law school or that kind of
287
00:18:06,348 --> 00:18:10,762
thing, and you can start to assume a greater familiarity with search
288
00:18:10,816 --> 00:18:14,026
engines and databases and that
289
00:18:14,048 --> 00:18:17,690
sort of thing, I find that kind of information very helpful.
290
00:18:18,430 --> 00:18:21,674
I'm not talking about, I have a cat user boxes
291
00:18:21,722 --> 00:18:25,482
here. That's all very fascinating,
292
00:18:25,546 --> 00:18:28,846
but doesn't really help gauge when
293
00:18:28,868 --> 00:18:32,480
you're having a discussion about the quality of an article or anything.
294
00:18:33,430 --> 00:18:37,458
That's why in the aftermath of the SJ thing,
295
00:18:37,624 --> 00:18:41,358
I felt that those statements, they are very helpful.
296
00:18:41,534 --> 00:18:45,230
And whether or not you can actually verify
297
00:18:45,310 --> 00:18:48,360
them, I still think that they should be there.
298
00:18:49,130 --> 00:18:52,882
And even though I can't prove to anybody on Wikipedia
299
00:18:52,946 --> 00:18:56,694
that I am a graduate student. Well, you can, but just choose
300
00:18:56,732 --> 00:19:00,346
not to, right? I mean, I thought it would help people understand
301
00:19:00,448 --> 00:19:03,514
where I'm coming from to know
302
00:19:03,552 --> 00:19:07,850
that that's my orientation towards
303
00:19:07,920 --> 00:19:11,518
literature and scholarship. What is the best practical way for
304
00:19:11,604 --> 00:19:15,262
the Wikipedia to become less anti elitist and
305
00:19:15,316 --> 00:19:18,394
correspondingly, the academy to become less anti
306
00:19:18,442 --> 00:19:22,806
Wikipedia. Okay, what do you mean by Wikipedia
307
00:19:22,858 --> 00:19:26,146
being anti elitist? Well, you say on your
308
00:19:26,168 --> 00:19:29,806
user page you have a link to the essay
309
00:19:29,918 --> 00:19:32,850
why Wikipedia must jettison its anti elitism.
310
00:19:34,950 --> 00:19:37,998
Yeah, but just because I have a link doesn't mean that. Well, I assume you
311
00:19:38,024 --> 00:19:41,286
agree with. I agree with everything in it, but I mean,
312
00:19:41,308 --> 00:19:44,760
the term anti elitism in the United States can mean a lot of
313
00:19:46,170 --> 00:19:49,874
know. It can mean like anti latte, anti volvo
314
00:19:49,922 --> 00:19:53,126
driving. Right. All those things. I think
315
00:19:53,228 --> 00:19:57,226
that anti elitism on Wikipedia means something
316
00:19:57,328 --> 00:20:01,782
much more specific than all of that. It means anti intellectualism.
317
00:20:01,926 --> 00:20:06,510
In my life I've come into contact a lot of anti intellectualism.
318
00:20:06,930 --> 00:20:10,906
I grew up in a really rural area that was extremely
319
00:20:10,938 --> 00:20:14,530
anti intellectual. It was almost like anti knowledge.
320
00:20:15,750 --> 00:20:19,214
And I don't see that kind of anti intellectualism
321
00:20:19,262 --> 00:20:22,834
in Wikipedia anywhere. I mean, people who
322
00:20:22,872 --> 00:20:26,434
participate in Wikipedia to some extent can't
323
00:20:26,482 --> 00:20:29,846
be that kind of anti intellectual because they are participating in,
324
00:20:29,948 --> 00:20:33,830
by definition. Yeah. In an enterprise that wants
325
00:20:33,900 --> 00:20:37,430
to, by definition,
326
00:20:38,910 --> 00:20:42,026
disseminate reliable knowledge to the
327
00:20:42,048 --> 00:20:45,562
rest of the world. Where the problems come in
328
00:20:45,696 --> 00:20:48,906
are where people start to dispute what
329
00:20:48,928 --> 00:20:52,734
is reliable knowledge. I have
330
00:20:52,772 --> 00:20:56,142
a different idea about reliable knowledge than some
331
00:20:56,196 --> 00:20:59,310
other editors, and I think that that is something
332
00:20:59,380 --> 00:21:03,602
that Wikipedia in some
333
00:21:03,736 --> 00:21:07,726
real way has not come to grips with. What is reliable.
334
00:21:07,838 --> 00:21:12,110
Right. Encyclopedia Britannica is legitimate
335
00:21:12,190 --> 00:21:16,226
because it's the encyclopedia Britannica. Right. That's the circular reasoning
336
00:21:16,258 --> 00:21:20,246
that people tell themselves they really do. They purchase it
337
00:21:20,268 --> 00:21:23,442
because they say it's encyclopedia Britannica, therefore it's reliable.
338
00:21:23,506 --> 00:21:26,760
Right. Wikipedia really has to prove itself.
339
00:21:27,370 --> 00:21:30,780
It has to prove itself very well.
340
00:21:31,870 --> 00:21:34,906
Slowly and carefully, over a long period of time. Yeah,
341
00:21:35,008 --> 00:21:38,554
exactly. And I think that we have to hold ourselves to
342
00:21:38,592 --> 00:21:42,234
an incredibly high standard to be able to do that. And I think
343
00:21:42,272 --> 00:21:45,440
that the higher the standard we hold ourselves to,
344
00:21:46,130 --> 00:21:48,190
the more sort of impressed,
345
00:21:49,010 --> 00:21:52,142
first of all, the people in the academy will be. You were talking about how
346
00:21:52,196 --> 00:21:55,802
are we going to change people's minds in the academy.
347
00:21:55,946 --> 00:21:59,234
First of all, the more impressed people in the academy will be. And if people
348
00:21:59,272 --> 00:22:02,674
in the academy start saying, wow, Wikipedia really has done a good job on this,
349
00:22:02,712 --> 00:22:06,114
right, that can kind of percolate down, right? To some
350
00:22:06,152 --> 00:22:09,606
extent, because then you'll get, well, wasn't there an article like
351
00:22:09,628 --> 00:22:13,446
published in Nature or something about how I. Use that example quite often. It was
352
00:22:13,548 --> 00:22:17,686
a very comprehensive journal, nature journal study, where they
353
00:22:17,708 --> 00:22:21,610
have similar articles in Wikipedia and in Britannica were compared by
354
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:25,162
peer reviewed effectively by academics in that particular area.
355
00:22:25,216 --> 00:22:28,940
And the result was, ironically, that they both were equally wrong.
356
00:22:29,710 --> 00:22:32,714
Right. They all had the same number of errors, like two to three errors per
357
00:22:32,752 --> 00:22:35,930
article, two or three major, and a. Couple of minor errors or omissions.
358
00:22:36,010 --> 00:22:39,342
And the result was that Wikipedia produced a page saying,
359
00:22:39,476 --> 00:22:43,130
a meter page saying, these are the mistakes that they've identified.
360
00:22:43,290 --> 00:22:46,258
Everyone, let's pitch in to fix them. In a month they were fixed, ticked off.
361
00:22:46,344 --> 00:22:48,740
Britannica, on the other hand, responded by.
362
00:22:51,430 --> 00:22:54,178
They would have to wait years to fix it. Not just that,
363
00:22:54,264 --> 00:22:57,478
they responded. Rather than saying, this is interesting and this
364
00:22:57,484 --> 00:23:01,398
is academic debate and whatnot, they responded by buying a full page advertisement in
365
00:23:01,404 --> 00:23:04,630
the London Times, decrying nature's
366
00:23:05,210 --> 00:23:08,842
methodology. Yeah. And that really shows the difference
367
00:23:08,896 --> 00:23:12,502
in the approach. I would be interested in an analysis
368
00:23:12,566 --> 00:23:16,010
of literature articles and history articles
369
00:23:16,430 --> 00:23:19,994
because I have a feeling that Wikipedia would not come out
370
00:23:20,032 --> 00:23:23,402
so well. They were all science articles, obviously. Yes.
371
00:23:23,536 --> 00:23:27,130
The science articles I have found in Wikipedia to be superb.
372
00:23:27,290 --> 00:23:31,178
The ones that I have read, I am not a science expert.
373
00:23:31,354 --> 00:23:35,678
However, I do live with one and that's handy.
374
00:23:35,854 --> 00:23:39,758
But the ones that I have read are amazing. They're comprehensive.
375
00:23:39,854 --> 00:23:42,658
I can read them as a non scientist myself,
376
00:23:42,824 --> 00:23:46,686
understand them. I am really astounded
377
00:23:46,718 --> 00:23:49,846
by the effort that has been put into them. I live with someone who is
378
00:23:49,868 --> 00:23:53,366
an undergraduate physics major and he was
379
00:23:53,388 --> 00:23:56,646
looking for articles to write because he loves physics and he
380
00:23:56,668 --> 00:24:00,440
would love to write an article. And there was nothing left. There was nothing left.
381
00:24:01,070 --> 00:24:04,906
On the other hand, I can always find something to write about on
382
00:24:04,928 --> 00:24:08,630
the 18th century. There is always a stub rating to be expanded.
383
00:24:08,710 --> 00:24:12,126
There's always a page. All these red links that I
384
00:24:12,148 --> 00:24:16,058
could make. I could make red links all day long. It's incredible.
385
00:24:16,234 --> 00:24:19,614
I mean, for example, one of the best selling novels of the
386
00:24:19,652 --> 00:24:22,590
18th century, Rousseau's Julie,
387
00:24:23,090 --> 00:24:26,930
the New Eloise, which helped
388
00:24:27,270 --> 00:24:30,670
generate an entire new genre, this sentimental novel.
389
00:24:30,750 --> 00:24:34,014
I mean, people went to visit Rousseau, they cried over this novel,
390
00:24:34,062 --> 00:24:38,754
they read it all night. Mean, you know, it's that
391
00:24:38,792 --> 00:24:42,078
kind of bestseller has a couple of paragraphs.
392
00:24:42,254 --> 00:24:46,274
It's doubly difficult to write about or doubly missing on Wikipedia
393
00:24:46,322 --> 00:24:49,130
because one, it's old, and two, it's not in English.
394
00:24:49,550 --> 00:24:53,158
Right. Although there's a translation of the novel
395
00:24:53,254 --> 00:24:57,946
and there's plenty of scholarship on it in English. It's just all
396
00:24:57,968 --> 00:25:02,106
of these major works in the 18th century are missing. And I haven't
397
00:25:02,138 --> 00:25:06,478
done a major survey of the 19th century or the 17th century or
398
00:25:06,564 --> 00:25:10,494
other countries, but I can only imagine that it's equally as
399
00:25:10,532 --> 00:25:13,882
bad in places like Africa or Asia.
400
00:25:14,026 --> 00:25:17,058
This is just one thing that I happen to know a lot about, so I
401
00:25:17,064 --> 00:25:20,654
know what's. But there's many areas
402
00:25:20,702 --> 00:25:24,946
like that, no doubt. So I sort of feel like even though that
403
00:25:25,128 --> 00:25:29,106
survey that they did about science articles was to Wikipedia's great
404
00:25:29,128 --> 00:25:32,710
benefit, I feel that there should be some sort of survey done about
405
00:25:32,860 --> 00:25:35,814
history and literature in these other fields to see, well,
406
00:25:35,852 --> 00:25:38,860
what is it that's missing and what do we need to improve on?
407
00:25:47,630 --> 00:25:52,430
Can I turn your attention to the role of women on Wikipedia
408
00:25:53,170 --> 00:25:56,862
and their proportion, how much they participate, and whether
409
00:25:56,916 --> 00:26:00,654
you feel women are not represented fully in
410
00:26:00,692 --> 00:26:04,514
articles and in editorship? Well, I'd like to turn to editorship first because
411
00:26:04,552 --> 00:26:07,860
I think that's a really interesting question. I'm not sure we know.
412
00:26:09,990 --> 00:26:12,930
First of all, you counted,
413
00:26:13,590 --> 00:26:17,060
interestingly, all the barn stars I was given,
414
00:26:18,170 --> 00:26:21,830
did you read them, what they said? I didn't read
415
00:26:21,900 --> 00:26:25,622
what, the notes that came with them. No. Yeah. Half of them said he.
416
00:26:25,756 --> 00:26:29,286
Really? Yeah. Because many people did not know
417
00:26:29,308 --> 00:26:32,442
my gender for a long time, because I didn't say
418
00:26:32,576 --> 00:26:36,234
on my user page what my gender was. It was very interesting to me.
419
00:26:36,352 --> 00:26:40,282
And people started leaving notes on my user page. I wasn't sure
420
00:26:40,336 --> 00:26:44,160
if you were a he or a she. And it was very interesting.
421
00:26:44,530 --> 00:26:48,960
So finally I did put a box at the top of my talk page that
422
00:26:49,330 --> 00:26:53,406
says that I'm a she because people were getting kind of concerned that
423
00:26:53,428 --> 00:26:56,446
they didn't know. It's interesting that people would find that
424
00:26:56,468 --> 00:27:00,306
important. Yes. It was fascinating to me, first of all, that they did find
425
00:27:00,328 --> 00:27:03,826
it important. It was also fascinating to me that for a long time
426
00:27:03,848 --> 00:27:07,106
people assumed I was a he. I started asking people why
427
00:27:07,128 --> 00:27:10,470
they assumed that. Was it because of my aggressive
428
00:27:11,050 --> 00:27:14,342
style of writing. I wondered if it was that,
429
00:27:14,396 --> 00:27:17,698
because I had assumed that anyone going to my user page would assume I
430
00:27:17,724 --> 00:27:21,114
was a woman, because people who
431
00:27:21,152 --> 00:27:25,130
write about women's issues in literature are most often
432
00:27:25,200 --> 00:27:29,046
a woman. So I had just assumed people would think, well, of course she's
433
00:27:29,078 --> 00:27:32,970
a woman. She's writing about children and she's writing about women.
434
00:27:33,040 --> 00:27:36,858
How could she not be a woman? That's what I did. And I had assumed
435
00:27:36,874 --> 00:27:40,318
that you were female on the basis that you were writing about women's stuff.
436
00:27:40,484 --> 00:27:44,146
And that's equally bad. It is.
437
00:27:44,248 --> 00:27:47,554
But the probability that you would have been
438
00:27:47,592 --> 00:27:50,834
right was so high. Know,
439
00:27:51,032 --> 00:27:54,866
perhaps make the stereotype not so bad. But I did
440
00:27:54,888 --> 00:27:58,146
find it fascinating that I was a he for a very long time. I see
441
00:27:58,168 --> 00:28:01,894
one here. The Barn star of high culture, given to you in July this
442
00:28:01,932 --> 00:28:05,762
year. This Barn star is awarded to our demet for his FA
443
00:28:05,826 --> 00:28:09,158
and GA work on classical era topics such as Mary Bulson Graft and
444
00:28:09,164 --> 00:28:10,390
Joseph Priestley.
445
00:28:12,750 --> 00:28:16,362
And I love it. Actually, there was a whole discussion on my talk page
446
00:28:16,416 --> 00:28:19,546
a while ago about what gender. I was on your
447
00:28:19,568 --> 00:28:23,566
talk page and you didn't answer. Well, actually, I think
448
00:28:23,588 --> 00:28:27,454
I said something about embracing all genders, because that was
449
00:28:27,492 --> 00:28:30,800
fabulous. I didn't really want to be either one.
450
00:28:34,530 --> 00:28:38,258
Yeah, I actually thought that was fun. So, with the
451
00:28:38,264 --> 00:28:42,466
editorship, I'm not really sure we know how many men and women are there.
452
00:28:42,568 --> 00:28:45,410
People declare their genders with user boxes,
453
00:28:45,850 --> 00:28:48,934
but they could be declaring anything with that. And of course,
454
00:28:48,972 --> 00:28:52,594
I've seen male and female user
455
00:28:52,642 --> 00:28:54,360
boxes on the same page.
456
00:28:56,490 --> 00:28:59,654
I don't know what's going on with that. To some extent,
457
00:28:59,702 --> 00:29:03,658
you assume it's more male simply because it's more
458
00:29:03,744 --> 00:29:08,250
technology oriented, but I think that's probably a dangerous assumption.
459
00:29:08,750 --> 00:29:11,834
How much data do we really have on this?
460
00:29:12,032 --> 00:29:15,486
The reason I asked recently was because there was a mailing list set
461
00:29:15,508 --> 00:29:18,938
up a while ago, and I'm not sure if it still exists, called wiki
462
00:29:18,954 --> 00:29:22,362
chicks, which was a mailing list exclusively for female
463
00:29:22,426 --> 00:29:26,050
editors of Wikipedia. I've never heard that.
464
00:29:26,200 --> 00:29:29,406
Got a lot of people a bit angry on the basis
465
00:29:29,438 --> 00:29:32,946
that it was exclusivist, but in a affirmative action kind of
466
00:29:32,968 --> 00:29:35,886
way. Now, at Wikimania,
467
00:29:35,918 --> 00:29:39,426
Taiwan, at the opening speech by Florence de
468
00:29:39,448 --> 00:29:43,186
Vivoard, or the chairperson of the foundation,
469
00:29:43,298 --> 00:29:46,150
there was a special table set aside for wiki chicks.
470
00:29:47,930 --> 00:29:51,366
Their efforts are laudable in the sense of promoting and providing
471
00:29:51,398 --> 00:29:54,954
a community for female editors on the community. But what
472
00:29:54,992 --> 00:29:58,406
is your initial reaction to that idea? I guess my initial reaction
473
00:29:58,438 --> 00:30:02,750
is, do they feel isolated?
474
00:30:03,650 --> 00:30:07,614
Because usually such communities help people who
475
00:30:07,652 --> 00:30:11,200
feel isolated. So, for example, there are often
476
00:30:12,290 --> 00:30:15,786
physics for women groups, right? In physics
477
00:30:15,818 --> 00:30:20,430
departments. Because there are so few women in those departments, they feel very isolated.
478
00:30:20,510 --> 00:30:24,194
It's a very different kind of culture, and so it's often good to have those
479
00:30:24,232 --> 00:30:28,262
kinds of groups. Right. I can imagine such a group for men
480
00:30:28,316 --> 00:30:32,006
in an english department because they're often dominated by women.
481
00:30:32,108 --> 00:30:35,400
Right. So I guess my question would be,
482
00:30:36,250 --> 00:30:39,318
are women feeling isolated on Wikipedia
483
00:30:39,414 --> 00:30:42,780
that they would need such a group? Do you?
484
00:30:43,790 --> 00:30:47,462
No, but I never advertised
485
00:30:47,526 --> 00:30:50,880
really what my gender was. So you have now, really?
486
00:30:51,650 --> 00:30:55,386
Yeah, until very recently, because I never really viewed
487
00:30:55,418 --> 00:31:00,126
that as particularly important to what
488
00:31:00,148 --> 00:31:04,070
I was doing. Actually, I kind of disliked
489
00:31:04,090 --> 00:31:08,020
the idea that only women can write about women's issues or
490
00:31:08,390 --> 00:31:09,700
that kind of thing,
491
00:31:12,710 --> 00:31:16,242
even though that is very common. And that argument
492
00:31:16,306 --> 00:31:19,814
has been made particularly for things like in
493
00:31:19,852 --> 00:31:23,240
english departments anyway, for african american literature, for example,
494
00:31:23,690 --> 00:31:25,670
that, I don't know, perhaps.
495
00:31:26,890 --> 00:31:30,394
Is this group made up of people who've been on Wikipedia for many years?
496
00:31:30,512 --> 00:31:32,620
I've only been on Wikipedia for a.
497
00:31:33,550 --> 00:31:37,626
Even. It's not a very long about your
498
00:31:37,728 --> 00:31:41,146
work. Not only are you writing a dissertation and
499
00:31:41,328 --> 00:31:44,526
professional academic and you're doing all this amazing stuff, you've only been here for
500
00:31:44,548 --> 00:31:47,694
a year. If the women
501
00:31:47,732 --> 00:31:51,006
have been on Wikipedia for like three or four years, I'm sure they have a
502
00:31:51,028 --> 00:31:54,530
much better idea of perhaps the isolating
503
00:31:56,470 --> 00:31:59,780
effect of being a woman on Wikipedia or something.
504
00:32:00,150 --> 00:32:04,562
I wonder if it would be interesting to have it be
505
00:32:04,616 --> 00:32:08,930
a group dedicated to women's issues on Wikipedia
506
00:32:09,010 --> 00:32:12,966
rather than women on Wikipedia. So people who are
507
00:32:12,988 --> 00:32:16,646
interested in making sure that women don't feel excluded or isolated on
508
00:32:16,668 --> 00:32:19,640
Wikipedia, because men can be interested in those issues.
509
00:32:20,010 --> 00:32:24,162
Men can be a champion for mean,
510
00:32:24,236 --> 00:32:28,090
I know that, for example, a lot of feminists have said,
511
00:32:28,160 --> 00:32:31,582
no, they can't, that that's not a good thing, actually,
512
00:32:31,636 --> 00:32:34,702
that women should be the people championing women's own
513
00:32:34,756 --> 00:32:38,574
causes. But I don't think that there should be such a
514
00:32:38,612 --> 00:32:41,854
division. There should be people arguing for
515
00:32:41,892 --> 00:32:44,962
women, right? Not just women arguing for women and
516
00:32:45,016 --> 00:32:48,446
men arguing for men. I think that's where in academia,
517
00:32:48,478 --> 00:32:52,194
for example, we've had so many problems with women
518
00:32:52,232 --> 00:32:55,490
scientists, for example, arguing that they should have family leave time,
519
00:32:55,560 --> 00:32:58,262
et cetera, and men never arguing for that.
520
00:32:58,396 --> 00:33:02,438
Men who have families should have family leave time too. And if it
521
00:33:02,444 --> 00:33:05,286
were people arguing for family leave time,
522
00:33:05,468 --> 00:33:08,678
I think that there would be a lot less discrimination against
523
00:33:08,764 --> 00:33:12,394
female scientists and it would be a sort of more
524
00:33:12,512 --> 00:33:15,420
equal atmosphere, if you know what I mean.
525
00:33:16,190 --> 00:33:20,122
Well, I think we should probably leave it there at that quite large
526
00:33:20,176 --> 00:33:23,526
digression from where we started up at barn Stars
527
00:33:23,558 --> 00:33:26,890
and Mary Wilson Craft. Although it has a lot of contemporary
528
00:33:26,970 --> 00:33:30,126
relationship, I hope that one
529
00:33:30,148 --> 00:33:34,250
day soon you'll be able to cast off your mask
530
00:33:34,330 --> 00:33:36,640
and proclaim to your faculty into the world.
531
00:33:39,010 --> 00:33:42,494
I am the world scholar on Mary Wilson Craft and everyone around
532
00:33:42,532 --> 00:33:44,960
the world has been reading my work much more than you.
533
00:33:47,050 --> 00:33:50,418
And I truly hope that happens. It saddens
534
00:33:50,434 --> 00:33:54,838
me greatly to hear that you are not only hiding your
535
00:33:54,924 --> 00:33:58,278
knowledge and experience because you think it might be embarrassing,
536
00:33:58,374 --> 00:34:02,026
but it's actually going to damage your career being an
537
00:34:02,048 --> 00:34:05,498
authority on a website. Yeah,
538
00:34:05,584 --> 00:34:09,238
I know. It worries me for the future of the Internet,
539
00:34:09,334 --> 00:34:13,158
actually. I think it'll change. I think it'll change the
540
00:34:13,184 --> 00:34:16,318
conclusion to my thesis, I hope, if I can justify the
541
00:34:16,324 --> 00:34:19,502
sentence, will be along the lines that just as it has become
542
00:34:19,556 --> 00:34:23,594
necessary for academics to publish in journals, in peer reviewed journals,
543
00:34:23,722 --> 00:34:27,074
and that's a required part of the job, it'll become, over the next
544
00:34:27,112 --> 00:34:30,690
decade or so, required part of the job for academics to
545
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:34,158
not necessarily write, but at least monitor and participate in the articles
546
00:34:34,174 --> 00:34:37,814
on Wikipedia in which they are an expert. Oh,
547
00:34:37,852 --> 00:34:42,706
the next decade, I think that's optimistic. But perhaps the next quarter
548
00:34:42,738 --> 00:34:46,600
century, if. We'Re still around that long.
549
00:34:47,210 --> 00:34:51,740
Oh, I think it will be. I think it will be. It's inserting itself into
550
00:34:52,430 --> 00:34:55,706
the ether, I think as long
551
00:34:55,728 --> 00:34:58,954
as it can sustain funds. Right. It's all about
552
00:34:58,992 --> 00:35:02,620
the money. Yeah, well, that's a whole episode in itself.
553
00:35:02,990 --> 00:35:06,058
Yeah, exactly. So thank you so much for spending
554
00:35:06,074 --> 00:35:08,878
your time with us today. I know it's been difficult trying to catch on to
555
00:35:08,884 --> 00:35:12,974
you. You've got a very busy life. Thank you. Well, and we're 13 hours
556
00:35:13,012 --> 00:35:16,254
apart. Yeah. Thank you very much.
557
00:35:16,292 --> 00:35:17,420
You're welcome. Thank you very much.